Disclosed herein are UV curable toner compositions and processes thereof. In the embodiments disclosed, the toner compositions provided herein can be selected for use in graphic arts and packaging applications, such as more specifically, temperature sensitive packaging and foil seals.
A current trend in the printing industry is xerographic packaging applications. Such applications generally utilize heat fused toners. However, there are a number of problems associated with using heat fused toners in these applications. One problem relates to printing on temperature sensitive packaging or substrates. It would be desirable to provide a toner composition that is fusible without significant heating or heating at high temperatures.
Additionally, printing for a number of packaging applications can require the use of materials that are durable and which are resistant to a variety of conditions and environmental factors. Conventional package printing uses curable inks to “toughen” the resulting printed image or indicia such that the image or indicia on the final packaging is durable and wear-resistant. In addition, many offset printings use a heated overcoat to protect the image from abrasion. However, overcoats applied to fused and unfused images can cause degradation of image quality. Accordingly, there is a need for a toner composition that in embodiments may not require a protective overcoat.
Furthermore, in the graphic arts industry and for a number of other entities, printing is performed on a wide array of substrates and surfaces such as on yogurt containers, foil seals for containers and other diverse packaging configurations. There can be a number of disadvantages associated with using heat fused xerographic toners in these traditionally lithographic printing applications. Many lithographic applications use an overcoat that is subsequently heated to protect images from abrasion. However, applying overcoats to fused and unfused toner can disturb the toner piles. Overcoats are usually applied with heat and this heat causes dry toners to smear and possibly undergo phase separation that can damage image quality. Accordingly, there is also a need for a single application printing process that can avoid the need for an overcoat, and particularly can avoid a multi-step process which includes a step of applying and heating an overcoat.